Overland 1970

by David Shirreff

It is 1970 and in London a group of people gather around a Land Rover bedecked with jerry cans and hooked to a trailer.

Ahead lies a journey of many thousands of miles on ‘The Hippie Trail’, the well-trodden route from London to Nepal. They will encounter every imaginable hazard along increasingly dangerous roads that will take them through mountains, deserts, across empty plains and through teeming cities.

Overland 1970 vividly recreates the experience of the ‘Overlander’ at a time when a Western traveller could make this epic journey without encountering war or totalitarianism. The Hippie Trail had its dangers but to anyone possessed of the spirit of adventure it offered a wealth of fascinating encounters and stunning spectacles.

Author David Shirreff knows his subject well. Having driven the Hippie Trail several times, he captures the chilly mornings, the engine failures, the moments of rapture and the constant stimulus of new sights and experiences. But what sets his book apart is that he focuses on what is surely the essence of those journeys: what happened between the travellers themselves.

Inside a metal box for hours at a time, and for weeks on end, relationships ebbed and flowed. Travellers coupled and uncoupled, nursed grudges, formed bitter rivalries and, occasionally, arrived at a better understanding of themselves.

Overland 1970 takes the reader into that Land Rover and the experience of a vividly drawn cast of characters as they experience the journey of a lifetime.